WCU professor co-authors book about rising sea levels

A book co-authored by Western Carolina University professor Rob Young about the global threat to coastal communities posed by rising sea levels has proven so popular that its publisher is announcing a release in paperback.

Written by Young and Orrin Pilkey, his friend and mentor from Duke University, The Rising Sea was published in hardback format in 2009. The book has won critical acclaim from the popular and scientific press.

In their book, Young and Pilkey warn that rising ocean levels brought about by global warming is not something that might happen in the future, but is happening now. They go on to argue that societies around the world must begin responding to the challenges of sea-level rise “in a planned and rational way, taking the long-term view” before major cities and other coastal development are inundated.

For more information about the book or WCU’s Program for the Study of Developed Shorelines, contact Young at 828.227.3822 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
, or visit psds.wcu.edu.

Reading Room

Like some other readers I know, my taste in books these last 20 years or so has shifted from fiction to non-fiction, especially history, biography, and literary studies. I still follow certain novelists — Anne Tyler, Pat Conroy, James Lee Burke, and others — and still review novels for this paper, but find that works of fiction simply don’t appeal as much as when I was in my twenties and thirties, when I read stacks of novels and poetry.